<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Ante-Post by EdenLies</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25328422">Ante-Post</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdenLies/pseuds/EdenLies'>EdenLies</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Man in the High Castle (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, First Time, Older Man/Younger Woman, Sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:22:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,566</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25328422</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdenLies/pseuds/EdenLies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia. The late-night conversation between John Smith and Juliana Crain doesn’t end with long-past war stories and the tired adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Instead, over cheap coffee and memories of a dance left unfinished, Juliana takes a gamble and entrusts John with some of her deepest vulnerabilities. Hawthorne Abendsen once said that he trusted her to bet on the best of people, no matter what the world said about who they were. This time around, instead of betting on the son, Juliana Crain bets on the father, with drastic consequences for the timelines of both worlds.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Juliana Crain/John Smith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>66</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi everyone, it's been entirely too long. Seven years since I've written any fanfiction, to be precise. I almost can't quite believe that I'm back. Like many of you, though, I'm still stuck in quarantine, and with all of that extra time I finally sat down and finished watching The Man in the High Castle. Season four in particular gave me a ton of plot bunnies, and I decided that I would follow one of my favorite ones. </p><p>The title for this fic derives from the concept of "ante-post betting," or a bet that is placed in a race far before the race even begins. It is an extremely risky form of gambling, and as such accounts for only a small fraction of all bets taken at events like horse races.</p><p>Some final notes: this fic will be endgame John/Juliana, and will likely feature some infidelity at points. Please keep that in mind! I'll start tagging things as I go along and they become more relevant. No sexytimes yet, but I've already tagged that in anticipation. ;)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Well, I got to know a woman</em><br/>
<br/>
<em>who would bet on the best in us,</em><br/>
<br/>
<em>who bet on people,</em><br/>
<br/>
<em>no matter what the world</em><br/>
<em>said about who they were,</em><br/>
<br/>
<em>who they should be.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hawthorne Abendsen, Season 2, Episode 10</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The Scudder, as desolate a place as it was, seemed oddly fitting for this moment, Juliana thought. With its forest-lined parking lot, peeling green walls, and dim yellow lighting, it had likely borne witness to hundreds of confessions. What had the people of Bailey’s Crossroads confessed within these four walls, over a pint of beer? Marital infidelity? A lack of fulfillment with one’s professional career? A wish to leave homemaking responsibilities behind, and travel the globe? She’d never had the luxury to worry about these things in her world. They seemed almost alien to her, when her only concern was to live to see the next day in order to free her America from the grasp of tyrants.</p><p>One of those tyrants sat across from her now, wearing a nondescript beige jacket and a bitter half-frown, confessing to her something he could not even bear to tell his own wife and child.</p><p>“We did things there that, uh, that I—I wouldn’t be able to tell my wife or son about. You know? And I feel like, uh, if I’d stayed, then that job would have…would have grown into me.”</p><p>John Smith stared down for a moment, lost in his own thoughts.</p><p>Part of Juliana wanted to scream at him. To say that in every world, it seemed, he was a man seduced by power and violence. That just like the Reichsmarschall, this John, no matter how seemingly innocuous, had committed heinous acts. And that just like the Reichmarschall, he had continued on with his life unhindered, and had never had to pay the price for it.</p><p>But that was not entirely true, she supposed. She saw the price that this John paid hidden in the shadows of his eyes. It was visible in the way that he stuttered, and in the way that he nervously wiped at his own brow. He was a man haunted by the truth of himself, beneath all the easy jokes and insurance sales. Even now, as they sat across from each other in silence in their little booth, she could feel it.</p><p>Maybe the Reichsmarschall too, was more haunted than she had believed. Haunted by his own hand in Thomas’s death and the dissolution of his family, most likely.</p><p>And hadn’t this been the intelligence she’d hoped to gather? To find a weak spot in this John, in order to better exploit it in the Reichsmarschall? She knew she’d gotten what she’d come for. She’d been sent here for a purpose, fallen right in front of his car for a reason. And that reason, she had believed, was the age-old one: to know thy enemy.</p><p>But now, looking closely at John, she was no longer as sure.</p><p>He caught her gaze as he continued to speak.</p><p>“Well, anyway, the war ended, and I came back here. And I just knew…I did not want a job that made me feel like that again.”</p><p>She suddenly understood what he’d meant when he’d told her that he felt lucky earlier in the evening, as he’d held her hand gently in his and danced with his arm around her waist. It wasn’t just his wife and son, his home and his job, that he felt lucky to have.  </p><p>“When you told me that you felt lucky, earlier tonight, you didn’t just mean lucky for what you have now,” Juliana guessed. He looked down again, refusing to meet her eyes.</p><p>“No,” he replied quietly, “Although I’m certainly thankful for Helen and Thomas and all the other things I’ve been blessed with.”</p><p>She nodded slightly, but said nothing.</p><p>“No,” he said again, “What I’m most lucky to have is to have had the ability to take that part of me that I saw in Mindanao, the part of me that to this day still terrifies me, and pack him away tightly into a little box.” At this, he glanced back up at Juliana, eyes blazing.</p><p>“I wonder, Juliana…if you knew the darkest details of the things that I’ve done, would you still call on me, and sit with me here right now? Would you even trust me with your hand in a dance?”</p><p>She felt his words like a slap across the face. Because ironically, although he didn’t know it, she <em>had </em>been privy to his worst depravities, at least in another life. And even <em>still</em>, she sat here with him, in an empty little diner in the middle of the night. She had even arranged the meeting herself. What did that say about her?</p><p>She wanted to believe that the intelligence she’d just gathered would be applicable to the Reichsmarschall—but for that to be true, she’d also have to believe that the two Johns were the same, once all of their divergent circumstances were trimmed away.</p><p>Juliana knew that part of her could not, and would not, accept that. That part of her already implicitly trusted this version of John Smith, and wanted to entrust in him even more. She also could not forget Hawthorne Abendsen’s words to her, all the way back when he’d reunited her with Trudy: that she was a woman who bet on people, no matter who they were or who they should have been. She had bet on Thomas once, and saved the world in the process.</p><p>Could she bet on John Smith?</p><p>“You’d be surprised,” Juliana said, thinking quickly as she spoke, “what I’ve known and forgiven before, or accepted before.” Here she thought of Joe, of letting him drift away on a raft into the Pacific. Of fucking him before slitting his throat in a dingy hotel bathroom.</p><p>“And if I told you the sordid details?” He insisted, unrelenting, “About how I helped my men hold down Japanese soldiers who had surrendered to us, and murdered them in cold blood? About how we laughed when they cried, and pleaded for their lives?”</p><p>Juliana closed her eyes. She imagined these soldiers, their lifeless bodies being left behind on the hot island sand. The gunshot wounds through their skulls, and the signs of torture they must have borne on their torsos and limbs. At the same time, she took in the man before her—the one who had trusted her with the darkness he could not even bear to share with his family, despite having known her only a short time. The man who had so sincerely pleaded with her to accept his help, and who had just told her that she should not have to go on alone to face her attacker.</p><p>Something shifted in the air, and she knew, somehow, that she was about to make a monumental decision.</p><p>“Even then. I still trust you, John, even knowing what you are capable of.”</p><p><em>Even though you are the man who shot me</em>, she thought.</p>
<hr/><p>Across from her, John looked rather stricken. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, once, twice. She could see that his hand—the same one she’d held only hours ago— was trembling a little. Had he really believed that no one would ever accept what he’d done, and trust him in its wake?</p><p>The Reichsmarschall, she realized, had yet something else that this John didn’t: a completely open relationship with his wife, wherein she not only knew of the things that he’d done, but had supported him all the while. Had been there for all of it. To that Helen, nothing was a revelation.</p><p>This world’s Helen had told her that the secret to the stability of her relationship with John had been total honesty. But in this world, Helen was not privy to her husband’s crimes. How would she react, Juliana wondered, if she knew the sordid details? She could understand why the John sitting across from her looked as if he’d just been given some kind of absolution.</p><p>Because in this world, Juliana was the first—the first, besides his unit mates, to know him for everything that he was.</p><p>“I don’t deserve your trust, probably,” he said finally, “but I do feel honored to have it.”</p><p><em>Knowing you don’t deserve it is the reason why you have it</em>,  she thought, but didn’t say. <em>Because it means that you’re a better, more honest man than I had wanted to give you credit for when I decided to meet with you tonight</em>.</p><p>Instead, she said firmly, “Nothing’s changed between when I called you and right now. I trusted you then, and I still trust you now.” She took a deep breath. The next part would be hard for her to say.</p><p>“John, I need you—I need your help,” she said.</p><p>“Tell me what I can do,” he replied immediately, expression open and earnest. She felt a small pang in her heart and tried to remember the last time anyone had looked at her that way. Had it been Frank, years ago, before this all began? Trudy, maybe? Liam? A part of her wanted to drink in that look forever, even if it was on John Smith’s face.  </p><p>“The man who shot me, he’s powerful. And he’s never going to let me go, if he can help it. Tonight I saw some of his men from my upstairs window, parked across the street. They were watching me, and waiting for something. I’m so scared, John. I’m afraid to be alone at home.”</p><p>She thought of the gun in her messenger bag, of not being able to sleep. Of how even in this world, she was not safe.</p><p>“How long has this been going on?” he asked, alarmed.</p><p>“A few weeks, maybe more,” she admitted. She was so tired.</p><p>He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. His expression was pensive.  </p><p>“Then you won’t be alone,” he declared, as if it were the simplest thing in the world, “I’ll stay with you.”</p><p><em>I’ll stay with you</em>.</p><p>“But how?” Juliana asked, “You can’t leave me with Helen and Thomas while you’re away. You absolutely can’t put them in that kind of danger. Maybe I don’t have the right to, but I care about them. More than you could know.”</p><p>At that, he smiled a little.</p><p>“I know you do. And there’s no way, I suppose, that I could convince you to go to the police? You’ve never seemed keen on it before.”</p><p>“No,” she said quietly, “I wouldn’t even know what to say to them. I can’t say anything to them.”</p><p>He sighed.</p><p>“Well,” he began uncertainly, “there is one option left. It’s…not really a very conventional one, or maybe even a very proper one.” At this, she saw some guilt flit across his expression.</p><p>“You could leave with me, let me drive you down with me to the Carolinas for work. What do you say, Juliana? I could watch over you, and it would get us away from the goons watching your house. It would give us a bit of time to regroup, and decide what to do.”</p><p>Juliana thought about what that would mean. Sitting across from him in his car, listening to the radio for hours on end. Staying at some cheap southern hotel with him, with their sagging mattresses and stained carpets. Getting the time to understand this John better, this John who’d be able to shoot an assassin dead, but whose hands would probably shake as he did.</p><p>This John who, despite shutting away his depravities into a little box, was willing to crack the lid on it back, just a little, to keep her safe.</p><p>“Okay,” said Juliana, “okay.”</p><p>John took a deep breath, looking a little discomfited.</p><p>“You do know, I’m sure, how this will look,” he said, his voice going hoarse. “What people will assume. Me, driving you out to a seedy motel, spending the night together with you in the same room…”</p><p>Was he imagining it now, she wondered? What they could have been doing, if this hadn’t simply been a solution to protect her from the Reichsmarschall’s henchmen? She pictured him on top of her, pressing her down into a mattress. Imagined his breath on her neck, a growl falling past his lips—</p><p>Juliana blinked.</p><p>“I know,” she replied, “But these hypothetical people who may disapprove, they don’t matter. We just—eventually, we’ll have to tell Helen, what’s going on. When we get back, maybe.”</p><p>John grimaced a little.</p><p>“Do you think she’ll understand?” Juliana asked. She was desperate to know, somehow, if the price of her own protection would be the breakdown of the Smith family. It couldn’t be.</p><p>“I hope that she will,” John sighed, “and that she’ll eventually forgive me my other secrets too.”</p><p>Juliana wondered, once again, what Helen would say. What she would do if she knew that the absolute honesty she believed in was not quite as absolute as it seemed.</p><p>
  <em>If you knew the darkest details of the things that I’ve done, would you still call on me, and sit with me here right now? Would you even trust me with your hand in a dance?</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>They paid somewhat hastily after that and exited The Scudder together. They’d stayed longer than they had both expected they would, and the pinkish light of daybreak had already begun to creep across the horizon. Instead of parting ways in the parking lot, Juliana let John guide her to his car, his hand on the small of her back. With only a moment’s pause to wonder if her old car would keep a few days in the parking lot (John assured her that it would, though she supposed that it wouldn’t matter much in the long run), they popped open the car doors, slid into their seats, and buckled themselves in.</p><p>They shared a look, and for a moment, Juliana wondered yet again if she’d made the right decision.</p><p>“Ready?” he asked, tilting his head in question.</p><p>She heard Hawthorne in her head, telling her that he believed in her to bet on the best of people. She’d shot her own sister’s father to save Thomas Smith.</p><p>She’d believed in Thomas’s goodness. And in this world, she wanted to believe in John Smith’s.</p><p>She could do this. She had to.</p><p>“Ready,” she said.</p>
<hr/><p>As their car peeled out of the parking lot, neither of them noticed the shadow of an armed man blending back into the treeline, mission interrupted and left incomplete.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi everyone, sorry for the delay with this chapter! Got distracted by a bunch of other things. But it's finally out, and it's here! Hope you all enjoy it. We see the Reichsmarschall for the first time, and the Alt!John+Juliana road trip begins...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A loud rap sounded from the other side of his office door. The Reichsmarschall, looking up from his paperwork, called out for his visitor to enter.</p><p>Agent Campbell, with his pale, drawn face, dark hair, and slightly awkward demeanor, probably did not strike many as someone who was particularly dangerous. But that was perhaps his greatest asset— that he wore the face of a forgettable man that hid the trained and calculating killer within. Although he’d not had Campbell working under him for very long, the Reischmarschall had high hopes for the agent. He’d provided a well-organized and detailed report on his alternate self, and hopefully had good news for him today.</p><p>“Come in and take a seat,” said John, gesturing to the chair opposite him at the desk. Campbell, hesitating for a second just beyond the door’s threshold, eventually complied. Silence reigned for a few moments as the Reichsmarschall scanned his visitor’s seated posture. It remained tight and rigid, with the agent’s shoulders pushed back so far it appeared almost comical. Compensating for something, perhaps? John narrowed his eyes.</p><p>Tilting his head just a little to the side, he asked, “I trust that your mission was a success, Agent Campbell?”</p><p>To Campbell’s credit, he did not prevaricate entirely too long. “No sir,” he managed, “I’m afraid to report that my mark escaped.”</p><p>John barely resisted the urge to sigh. So Juliana Crain would live to breathe another day, in this alternate universe she’d found herself in.</p><p>“And how did that happen, Agent?”</p><p>“Well, sir,” said Agent Campbell, “I couldn’t get to her while she was alone. She didn’t return to her car, nor to her house yesterday evening.”</p><p>Unexpected, given her reported movements in recent days, but it ought not to have been an insurmountable issue. There was something that Agent Campbell was still holding back.</p><p>“I told you to try and minimize collateral damage, Campbell, but minimal collateral damage doesn’t mean no collateral damage. Why didn’t you take care of both Juliana and her companion?” John’s tone was at once both soft and sharp. Campbell heard the reprimand for what it was and shifted nervously in his seat.</p><p>The Reichsmarschall wondered if she was being accompanied by Russ Gilmore. According to Campbell’s previous intelligence, she certainly spent a lot of time with the man. How was she using him? Had the man been taken in by her broken wing act, he wondered? She really was very good at it.</p><p>Campbell swallowed. He opened his mouth, hesitated, and closed it again.</p><p>“What is it, Campbell?”</p><p>The room was silent for a beat.</p><p>“It’s just…her companion was you, sir,” replied the agent. “You…he and Juliana left together in his car after a nighttime rendezvous.”</p><p>For the first time since the meeting began, John was surprised. He had known that Juliana was friendly with his alternate self and family, but all the intelligence had indicated that that friendliness and familiarity extended only as far as Thomas’s Aikido lessons, some family dinners, and perhaps some bar nights.</p><p>“Am I to understand, then, that Juliana Crain and my alternate self drove off together into the distance, at an entirely irregular hour, to some undisclosed location?”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” said Campbell.</p><p>If the Reichsmarschall had been alone right now, he would have laughed. In that moment he understood, just a little bit, how the absurdity of divergent worlds could begin with irony and end in madness. How else did someone get to be like Hawthorne Abendsen, after all?</p><p>Lost in his thoughts, the Reichsmarschall almost did not realize that Campbell had begun to speak again.</p><p>“Sir, I…aborted my mission and returned here to headquarters because I wasn’t sure what the protocol would be for…” the agent trailed off, but John’s brain helpfully supplied the end of the sentence.</p><p>
  <em>I wasn’t sure what the protocol would be for killing you.</em>
</p><p>Christ, the absurdity of it all. As if there were any pre-written rules regarding the assassination of Nazi leaders’ alternate selves.</p><p>The Reichsmarschall took a few moments to consider his options.</p><p>His first instinct, of course, was to allow the hit on himself. Abendsen had said that travel to that universe was contingent on him not having an existing counterpart there. And hadn’t the entire point of this portal, for him, been to be able to see his Thomas again? Every hour that he’d spent in his home office rewinding and replaying the reels where he, Helen, and Thomas shared happy summer afternoons together—what else had all those hours been for? He hadn’t watched those films repeatedly to torture himself with what he no longer had. John Smith was a lot of things, but he certainly was no masochist.</p><p>No, he’d watched them repeatedly because in every frame he had seen hope. The hope that he could meet his son again, and this time around, keep him safe. That he could atone for his sins in this life, even if only in another one.</p><p>But he knew that this hope and this drive for a second chance with Thomas could so easily be his own downfall. It was for this reason that another part of him urged caution with regards to his alternate self. Firstly, Abendsen had given up the truth regarding multiverse travel rather quickly. He’d assumed that the man had done so simply out of fear for his wife, but had there been another reason? Was Abendsen trying to guide him into eliminating himself?</p><p>Juliana Crain was intentionally keeping him—his other self—close, and he did not know if that was in an attempt to keep herself out of harm’s way, or to place his counterpart right into it. Did she think he’d hesitate to order his own death? Or was she counting on it?</p><p>Were they trying to ensure he would travel to that world, and leave this one behind to be taken over by the Resistance? They knew as much as he did that if no obstacle stood in his way, he would be unable to resist the temptation of seeing his son alive again.</p><p>But to keep the route to his son open, and at his beck and call, he had to keep the Reich protected. The Reich had once taken his son, and now saw fit to give him back. If he stopped playing the game wisely now, John knew, all bets were off. He could lose everything.</p><p>It seemed prudent to pay Abendsen and a few other prisoners a visit before doing anything rash.</p><p>“For now, Agent Campbell, I’d like for you to coordinate a shadow on the two of them. Gather intelligence, nothing more. Do you have any leads as to their location?”</p><p>“If your alternate self has not deviated completely from his own plans, sir,” replied Campbell, “He should be driving down his usual work route. He was slated to set off towards the Carolinas late yesterday evening.”</p><p>“Fine,” said John, “send a team down his work route, and send two agents to stand watch at Miss Crain’s residence.”</p><p>“And what of myself, sir?”</p><p>“You are to remain here and await a new set of orders this evening.” He cocked an eyebrow at the agent seated across from him.</p><p>“We can’t just watch them forever, after all.”</p><p>Campbell nodded in understanding, rose from his seat, and heiled. As the agent departed, John Smith leaned into his high-backed chair.</p><p>He would make his visits, and once he’d reassured himself that he wasn’t merely playing straight into their hands, he would reinstate his order to kill Juliana Crain and to take care of any other witnesses if necessary— including himself.</p><hr/><p>As the Mercury Lucerne swept down the highway, Juliana watched the fields and trees outside blur by. From the tinny radio speakers, the early morning news broadcast had come to an end, and the beginning beats of a song crackled to life.</p><p>
  <em>Well I’m gonna preach you a sermon ‘bout Old Man Atom…</em>
</p><p>Juliana shivered. She’d certainly heard and seen enough of atomic bombs to last one lifetime. And now here she was, in a second life, where the bombs were not gone, but merely in the hands of other powers. It was ironic, really, that in so many different worlds, man had always come around to creating such vicious monstrosities—maybe mankind had really not changed much, between these universes. Maybe man was never satisfied with what he had, and always wanted more.</p><p>
  <em>You know, Einstein says he’s scared,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If he’s scared, boy, I’m scared</em>
</p><p>John, who’d been mostly silent during the journey thus far, flicked his eyes towards her.</p><p>“You ever seen the footage of the bombs?”</p><p>He knew Juliana was too young to remember the moment, back in 1945—but what he didn’t know, of course, was that she also remembered a much more recent nuclear threat. San Francisco, leveled by an a-bomb in Hawthorne’s many videos. Dust and debris, and bodies everywhere.</p><p>“Mhmm,” she hummed, “They played it for us in our history classes back in Berkeley.”</p><p>The Berkeley she’d attended for just a few years before she’d thrown herself in front of speeding traffic was a far cry from the Berkeley that this John knew. She’d learned about Japanese history and philosophy in the cramped seats of Dwinelle and Wheeler Halls, not about free speech and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.</p><p>John’s hands flexed on the steering wheel, as if he’d wanted to grip it tighter, but then had thought better of it.</p><p>“I still think about it sometimes,” he admitted, looking back out at the road ahead of him. He seemed burdened, weighed down. He was, as Juliana had seen in the diner, a man haunted.</p><p>“I feel relieved that it happened, and that it got me sent home from Mindanao,” John continued, “and then I feel sick. Sick that I’m still glad for my own rescue, even at the cost of all of those other lives.”</p><p>“John,” she said, horrified to feel something like pity well up inside her, “You can’t—you shouldn’t think about it that way.”</p><p>“Why not?” he countered, “So that I don’t have to admit to myself that I’m a selfish man?”</p><p>“Because benefitting from a tragedy is not the same as instigating tragedy for your own benefit,” Juliana replied, thinking briefly of the Reichsmarschall.</p><p>“And anyways,” she added, rather firmly, “a selfish man wouldn’t put himself in harm’s way just to protect an acquaintance from shadowy men that are tailing her."</p><p>At this, John did catch her gaze, but his eyes were sad.</p><p>“You’re not just an acquaintance to me, Juliana,” John said, and she could hear the hurt in his words. She berated herself silently for her word choice. How could this John know that he wore the face of the man who’d shot her, and killed millions? How could he know that trusting him and being close to him was a new thing, one she’d hardly ever imagined?</p><p>She opened her mouth to apologize, but he didn’t give her the chance.</p><p>“You came from nowhere, just appeared on the road, in front of my car. But ever since, you’ve helped Thomas relax and keep his head straight, and been a far better friend to Helen than all of those other insincere housewives combined. And as for me…” he trailed off for a moment, hesitating.</p><p>Juliana kept quiet, waiting with bated breath for John to continue.</p><p>“And as for me, I never realized how much I needed someone to talk to, about all of these things that aren’t pretty enough for a family photo album. Maybe it’s silly, but…I can’t shake the thought that I was somehow <em>meant</em> to meet you. I didn’t know what I needed— what I needed to work through— until you came barreling into my life.”</p><p><em>Needed</em>. John Smith needed her, and that in itself was something of a revelation that set her mind alight. She remembered the Reichsmarschall taunting her, saying her <em>usefulness</em> was coming to an end—</p><p>No longer.</p><p>Juliana Crain had a place and a purpose, could be <em>useful</em> again— both in this world and in hers.</p><p>John, taking her silence for embarrassment, reached across the center console and laid his hand upon her arm. She startled a bit upon the touch, feeling the warmth of his palm seep through the fabric of her shirt.</p><p>“Juliana?” he said softly, “I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you.”</p><p>“No,” she managed, “I’m not…embarrassed. I guess I’m just not used to being needed by anyone, anymore. I’ve kept up a strong front, and kept people at a distance since…well.” She thought of how she’d not let Wyatt get too close, of how even here she couldn’t quite bear to get Russ involved with the violence that dogged her every step.</p><p>But John Smith, she knew, would now be different. She’d made that decision, just a few hours ago, when she’d chosen to ask for his help.</p><p>“It feels good, actually,” she admitted, smiling a little as she caught his gaze, “to know that I’m needed somewhere.”</p><p>John answered her smile with one of his own, his eyes crinkling a bit in the corners. He squeezed her arm once before retreating from her space, both hands on the wheel once more.</p><p>“Now I really know that I’m a selfish guy, because I’d do anything to see you keep smiling like that,” he joked, before his expression turned serious once more.</p><p>“But seriously, Juliana. You’re more important than you could ever know.”</p><p><em>You are too</em>, she wanted to say.</p><p>But she didn’t.</p><p>They drove onwards, Seeger’s melancholic lyrics left far behind them. Just before they crossed the border into North Carolina, Juliana drifted off to sleep.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>That's it for now! I debated for a long while on whether or not to include Nazi!John's activities in the main world as their own section in the story, for fear of breaking the mood of the alt-world, but I think it may be necessary in the end. Thanks for reading, and do let me know what you think! I really appreciate every comment and kudos. :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I've been on a bit of a roll with my writing, lately, so here's chapter three of Ante-Post! In this chapter: Juliana has a nightmare, John comforts her, and they stop at a roadside diner for a meal, where some heart-to-heart ensues. </p>
<p>Chapter-specific warning: Nazi!John features in Juliana's dream, and he's really damn creepy.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She dreamt of him. Not of him here, as he was, with his gentleness and his haunted eyes. No, she dreamt of John Smith, Reichsmarschall.</p>
<p><em>“Hello, Juliana,” he said. His tone was familiar, almost teasing. She could hear the laughter behind his words. “How are you feeling?”</em> </p>
<p>
  <em>If it weren’t for the lacerations on her face, the handcuffs around her wrists, and the electrodes taped to her temples, she would almost have been able to believe that she’d been simply sitting down for a nice family dinner in the Smith home. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Does it matter?” she said, as she scoffed. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He cocked his brow, and with a whisper of a smile on his face, sat down to face her. He was, if nothing else, a man who knew when it was time to get down to business. Smith began with his usual tactics. It was destabilization and demoralization, first: showing her an image of Joe’s corpse to throw her emotionally off-balance, divulging that Abendsen had been captured so as to dishearten her. He hid his real question regarding Resistance identities beneath the other two, perhaps hoping that she wouldn’t notice. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It was insulting, really. His usual tactics may have worked, more often than not (“I’m sure it works,” he had once told her in a darkened apartment, “more often than not”), but they wouldn’t work on her. She knew him too well, saw him too clearly. They had been opposing pieces on the same chessboard for far too long to be unfamiliar with one another’s grand strategies. If he could play at destabilization and demoralization, she could too. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She hadn’t much left to lose, after all. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>As he stood and headed towards the interrogation room door, list of Resistance names still as short as it had been when he’d arrived, she launched her attack.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“You know,” Juliana said, watching as the Reichsmarschall stopped dead in his tracks, “the night Thomas came to see me, it was heartbreaking how ashamed he was…believing he’d let you down by being less than perfect. Telling him how much you loved him just wasn’t enough to save him from the way that he was raised. I can only imagine how that must weigh on you.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>For a moment, silence reigned. He remained turned away from her.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Would he simply ignore her, she wondered? Or would he walk out and order another round of torture for her, to be carried out by his army of loyal grunts? The latter thought did not bother her as much as it probably should have—because every act of torture, she knew, was also a confession. A confession that he’d been affected by her words, that he couldn’t bear to hear them. That they’d done as much damage to him as the electroshock therapy would do to her body. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>John Smith did neither of those things. Instead, he spun on his heel and turned to face her. The expression he wore in that moment chilled her to the bone. His mouth was half-curled in a sinister smile, his teeth a bright white in the fluorescent lights of the room. That smile spoke of bestiality and of predatory intent. But in contrast to the wild, animal curl at his lips, his eyes were flat and dead. It was as if he’d studiously wiped the sentiment from his eyes, but had not quite managed the trick for the rest of his expression. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The juxtaposition was uncanny and unsettling. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Miss Crain,” said the Reichsmarschall as he slowly stepped closer to her, “Did you really imagine that I was such a simple man? That I’d perhaps just run off and cry, upon hearing my son’s name?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He loomed over her now. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Did you really think,” he continued, deadly smile still fixed firmly on his face, “That I ascended the ranks of Reich command only out of some virtuous desire to protect my family? That maybe deep down inside my heart, I was just a good man trapped into unfavorable circumstances?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>At this, he grabbed her jaw and yanked her face up towards him. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Juliana, but I’m no fairytale antihero. Actually, I rather like what I do.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He slapped her then, hard. The resounding crack reverberated across the room like a gunshot. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Juliana inadvertently cried out in pain. Her skin had already been mottled with bruises and cuts; the slap had inflamed the bruises and reopened the wound on her cheek. When her eyes managed to refocus, she could see that he was pleased. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Pleased with her suffering. The realization made her stomach drop. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She’d always believed him to be someone indifferent towards violence, who used it uncaringly as a strategic means to get to the top, but who spent very little time reveling in it. The systemic use of violence needed for the maintenance of a regime had always been the work of cool-headed administrators rather than of bloodthirsty psychopaths. Before its soldiers, Berlin had its paper-pushers: men who kept genealogical files, who designed efficient boxcars and drew up railway plans, and who signed orders for the deaths of faceless men and women with their ink-tip pens. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>But she had been wrong, so wrong.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He met her eyes, then. His manic pleasure faced off against her fear. Holding her gaze, he reached for the knife he kept hanging on his belt and pulled it out of its sheath. The whisper of metal against leather was deafening. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Miss Crain,” he crooned, “I think it’s about time I give you those broken wings of yours.”</em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>Juliana screamed. She felt hands on her then, large and heavy and masculine, and knew this was her end—</p>
<p>She struggled, unseeing, trying to slap those hands away.</p>
<p>“…Juliana!” she heard, as if it had been whispered to her from miles away.</p>
<p>“Juliana, please!” The voice was clearer, now, and closer. <em>Help me</em>, she thought. <em>Help. </em></p>
<p>She felt a palm cup her cheek, then. It a gentle touch—to heal, not to harm. A gentle touch from a gentle man—</p>
<p>Her eyes snapped open, and Juliana found herself once again in the passenger seat of the Mercury Lucerne, with John hovering over her in concern. The hand he he’d placed on her shoulder was soothing, kneading slowly in circles in the hopes of calming her. The hand on her face was solid and warm, but not oppressive.</p>
<p>“There you are,” he said with relief, “there you are.”  The hand on her cheek came up for just a moment to card through her hair before dropping back down to his side.</p>
<p>“I, what—” Juliana stuttered.</p>
<p>“Just a bad dream,” John said, “But you’re awake now.”</p>
<p>Her heart was still racing, and she could feel the remnants of hysteria lapping up against the back of her mind. A part of her wanted to laugh. To point out, in some ugly and vindictive manner, that awakening to the same face that had just haunted her nightmare was not really awakening at all. But that vindictive kernel inside of her was small.</p>
<p>Vindictiveness, after all, would not change men.</p>
<p>And could she really blame him, this John of the earnest eyes and the kind demeanor? She smiled at him, then, though she still felt a bit shaky.</p>
<p>“Right, um, thanks,” she said, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”</p>
<p>“No need to apologize,” he replied, “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”</p>
<p>“I’m fine,” Juliana said, “Really.” She covered the hand on her shoulder for a moment with her own. A silent thank-you, of sorts. She hoped he would understand.</p>
<p>At this, John brightened, and the last of the worry written across his face abated.</p>
<p>“Good to hear. I’d tried waking you up because I figured now would be a good time to stop for something to eat. You must be starving, and I’m starting to get a bit peckish myself.” At this, he nodded his head towards something outside of her window.</p>
<p>It was only now that Juliana realized that their car was parked in front of a small, empty-looking diner. The façade of the building had likely once been a shining chrome, but the metal had dulled and weathered with age. Stripes of red and blue by the doorway added some additional detail, and over the door, a sign proudly proclaimed this to be “Mickey’s Diner.”</p>
<p>“It’s no five-star fare, but…”</p>
<p>“It’s perfect,” said Juliana, smiling.</p>
<hr/>
<p>They walked into the sleepy little diner together and were quickly seated at a booth by the window. Aside from an older gentleman nursing a cup of coffee at a counter barstool, the restaurant had no other diners. Juliana couldn’t quite tell if it was because the food here was nothing to write home about, or if it was because this corner of North Carolina was always this quiet.</p>
<p>Two menus sat waiting on the tabletop, and Juliana reached for hers gratefully. She hadn’t ordered anything at The Scudder, and she’d been too nervous to eat much at dinner the night previously. She really was hungry. And it was important to keep up her strength, she knew.</p>
<p>For whatever could possibly come next.</p>
<p>Just as she decided on an omelette and some warm tea, a blonde waitress approached their booth. She looked to be in her fifties, and her wrinkled face wore a pleasant smile.</p>
<p>“Morning, you two,” she said, looking between them, “Welcome to Mickey’s. My name’s Paula, and I’ll be your server today. Could I get you both started with some drinks?”</p>
<p>John, unsurprisingly, ordered coffee (“I already ran out of my rocket fuel,” he complained), while Juliana requested some piping-hot Earl Grey.</p>
<p>As Paula busied herself with their orders in the kitchen that stood just opposite the counter seating, John spoke again.</p>
<p>“You’re not really much of a coffee girl, are you?”</p>
<p>“No,” Juliana responded, “I grew up drinking tea, so I still gravitate towards it on most days.”</p>
<p>For a moment, Juliana thought of Danny, from nearly a lifetime ago at her old dojo. <em>Would you like to go out for tea with me, Juliana? </em>he’d asked. She wondered where he was now, what he was up to. If he was even still alive, in that godforsaken world of theirs.</p>
<p>“I’d make myself a warm cup at night, sometimes, when I couldn’t get myself to fall asleep. I always steeped the leaves myself,” she added. Tea bags had never come close to comparing to the delicately fragrant leaves that she’d purchase from the apothecary down the street.</p>
<p>“Always had trouble with nightmares, then?” John asked lightly. He was curious about earlier, she could tell, but was weary of probing too harshly.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Juliana admitted. Her life had never been easy; the things she’d seen would have given anyone nightmares. “I’d dream about losing my sister, again and again, in a million different ways.” The Smiths, in this universe, knew quite well how close she’d been to Trudy. She’d told them that Trudy had died in a car accident—if only the reality had been as clean. Images flashed through her mind: a gunshot, a white chrysanthemum, a mass grave.</p>
<p>But the truth of the matter, of course, was that it was not only her sister’s ghost that haunted her. The ghost that haunted her the most, these days, shared the face of the man seated across from her.  </p>
<p>But this man…this John, he’d had shared his ghosts with her, hadn’t he? He’d made himself vulnerable, had trusted her with his darkest secrets.</p>
<p>So Juliana continued to speak.</p>
<p>“But the nightmares got worse after I met the man who shot me.”</p>
<p>John studied her for a moment.</p>
<p>“Juliana, in the car…were you dreaming of him?”</p>
<p>
  <em>Him. You. This face, with its sharp cheekbones, and with its pale green eyes. This voice, with its smoky tone and its melodic cadence, in every shout and in every whisper. </em>
</p>
<p>“Yes,” she said, and shivered. “He…” she couldn’t make herself continue.</p>
<p><em>I think it’s about time I give you those broken wings of yours</em>.</p>
<p>Her hands were shaking on the tabletop. She tried to pull them down to her lap to hide them. But lighting fast, as if sensing her retreat, John reached for her hands and enfolded them in his own.</p>
<p>“Take your time,” he said, quietly.</p>
<p>“I,” She tried again, and paused.</p>
<p>“It’s just…shooting me, that wasn’t the first time that…he hurt me.”</p>
<p>John squeezed her hands, then, and with great force of will, Juliana managed to meet his gaze.</p>
<p>She saw in his eyes that he was devastated by her admission.</p>
<p>“What did he do to you?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.</p>
<p>She took a deep breath. In, out.</p>
<p>“He…God…I don’t think I’m ready to talk about this,” said Juliana, shakily. She felt so weak, so ashamed.</p>
<p>“Okay, said John, “That’s okay. We can talk about this again when you’re ready.”</p>
<p>Sensing her increased distress, he let his thumb rub circles into her skin. Juliana focused in the touch, on the soft and steady movement. She felt her body relax by increments.</p>
<p>She would tell him one day, she promised herself. Soon.</p>
<hr/>
<p>They spoke of lighter topics, after. By the time their meals arrived, they’d left behind the stuff of her nightmares, and had moved on to happier memories.</p>
<p>John regaled her with stories from his wilder days as a young man. He’d told her, for instance, that when he’d been sixteen, he and his friends had decided to play a few rounds of what they called “mailbox baseball”: taking aim at and smashing the mailboxes of their most annoying neighbors, all in the back of a pickup truck.</p>
<p>“I really wasn’t that good at it,” he admitted, grinning at her. “But it made me feel so cool and grown-up.”</p>
<p>“Maybe until it got you in trouble?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know about that,” John said, “My old man made me work for a few months mowing lawns just so I could pay all of the neighbors back. Lawn mowing is awfully grown up, don’t you think?”</p>
<p>John cocked his head and affected a mock-ponderous expression, but he couldn’t quite suppress his mirth. Juliana laughed, and her heart felt lighter than it had in days.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>That's it for now! I'd really appreciate any comments/kudos. The next few chapters will include quite a bit more action in them, so this one was sort of like the calm before the storm.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for the long delay, everyone! In the last month I moved back across the country to begin my PhD research again, and as a result had to also weather a two week quarantine. I didn't feel much like writing when I was trapped in my room! </p><p>Anyhow, alt!John and Juliana continue on their trip, and prepare for the first official item on his schedule. Nazi!John doesn't make an appearance in this chapter, but he will be back in the next. He's still got to interrogate Abendsen again, after all, and decide what to do about Juliana and his alternate self...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the time they paid Paula at the register and then made their way back out to the car, the sun was blazing high in the sky. As Juliana buckled her seatbelt with a soft <em>clink</em> and John got the car started, the clock on the Lucerne’s dashboard read <em>12:25</em>. Juliana wondered what John’s commitments for the day were, work-wise. Would they be abandoned entirely, in light of her current predicament? Or would it be smarter to act naturally, and none the wiser? She tried to picture the Reichsmarschall, in his uniform and his high-backed leather chair, and tried to guess at his calculations. What would keep her safest?</p><p>John, following her gaze to the clock, seemed to intuit her current train of thought.</p><p>He rubbed the back of his neck, and said, “So, first on the roster was a meeting with Northwestern Mutual at four this afternoon, in Raleigh. We’re only around forty miles out from their new building on Glenwood Avenue, so we’ve still got plenty of time. I just…don’t know what to do. What would be best, for you.”</p><p>She could see that he was worried, and she sighed.</p><p>“I’m not too sure myself, to be honest. I know him— and his men— fairly well, but there are so many things I don’t know. I don’t know if they know that I’ve spotted them, and I don’t know what they’d do…”</p><p><em>While I’m with you. You, who wears the face of their boss</em>.</p><p>John was silent for a moment.</p><p>“If there’s still any chance they don’t know we’re on to them,” John said finally, “then that’s probably something worth defending.”</p><p>“But playacting ignorance would also cost us time and energy,” Juliana countered, “is that something we can afford?”</p><p>John rubbed a hand over his eyes. He must be tired, she thought suddenly. They’d been on the road for hours, and he’d woken up early to meet with her back in Bailey’s Crossroads.</p><p>“I think that it’s a price we’ll have to pay. The only other alternative would be to make a run for it and try to get off the grid entirely, but…that would give away our awareness, instantly. And there’s no guarantee they wouldn’t find us anyways.”</p><p>Juliana shivered, and thought back to the men she’d seen from her second story window. There had been at least two in the sleek black car; they’d been focused, silent, and efficient. Doubtlessly, they had been trained in their work by the best. Maybe by the <em>Abwehr </em>headquarters in Berlin.</p><p>“It probably wouldn’t take them very long to find us again,” she admitted. “These men…they’re very well trained.”</p><p>“Then it really does seem better just to stick to my schedule and pretend we’re unaware of them,” John said, and this time Juliana could only nod in acquiescence.</p><p>“At least, that’ll be our strategy until something changes.”</p><p>Silence fell upon them both for a few moments.</p><p>“I just wish I knew who ‘these men’ were, Juliana,” said John, but his tone was melancholy rather than recriminating. “It’s really hard to help, and to make all the right choices, when I don’t really even know what we’re up against.”</p><p>Juliana closed her eyes, guilt bubbling to the surface. Here he was, trusting her with his own demons, and caring for her enough to protect her from murderous men. And she couldn’t even tell him who those men were. She wanted to admit it to him, wanted to just tell him all of the truth—</p><p>But how could she? How did one explain alternate worlds, travel between them, and alternate selves? How did one explain that in her world, the Axis had won the war, and had laid waste to this country?</p><p>How did she explain to the man sitting across from her that in her world, he was her tormentor instead of her savior?</p><p>She needed more time.</p><p>“I’m sorry, John,” she said.</p><p>“Don’t be,” he replied quietly.</p><p>He looked up at her, then, and she caught his eyes. She could see such sincerity in his verdant gaze that her feelings of guilt eased, just a little bit.</p><p>“I just really don’t want to do wrong by you,” he said, finally. “I don’t want to let you down.”</p><p><em>You couldn’t</em>, Juliana thought.</p><p>“John—” she began, meaning to interject. But he continued speaking.</p><p>“If the monsters chasing us need to be faceless, for now, I’ll just have to do my best.”</p><p>She could see worry line his brow, and concern creep into the corners of his eyes.</p><p>“I just hope my best is enough.”</p><hr/><p>Following John’s schedule, they soon realized, posed a new set of problems. The first and foremost issue was that leaving her behind in the car while he attended his meeting seemed foolish at best and like a death wish at worst. Quiet lots and empty parking structures were perfect crime scenes, with their few witnesses and their shadowed corners.</p><p>They had quickly decided that she would have to go in with him. But then how would they explain away her presence to the other salesmen? She would have to take on the role of a secretary, perhaps, or of an intern. Given how little she knew about the inner workings of insurance companies (and could anyone really blame her? It’s not like insurance sales had been her top priority back in her world, where merely being alive the next day was a victory), they settled eventually on the former.</p><p>“I’ve never brought any secretaries with me, especially this far out,” John said, uncertain if anyone in the meeting room would even buy their ruse in the first place. He scratched the back of his neck, considering.</p><p>“We’ll just have to try to make this as believable as we can,” Juliana said, catching sight of her tatty scarf and her worn clothes in the side-view mirror. Would a secretary of Mr. Smith’s ever be caught dead wearing these things? Did he even have personal secretaries, back in his little office in Bailey’s Crossroads? She looked at the clock on the dashboard and saw that it read <em>1:13</em>.</p><p>“Well,” John said after a moment of silence, “There is one way we could do this, which would explain away the oddity.” </p><p>“How?” she asked. At this, his expression turned guilty, and her thoughts flickered back to that moment in which he’d asked her, hours ago, to come on this journey with him.</p><p>“We could…suggest, or intimate, that we’re having an affair.”</p><p>Juliana released a gust of breath. For the second time in only a few hours, she was forced to consider the lovely visage of the man who accompanied her. She inadvertently pictured the two of them together, in the most primal of ways. What that would look like. In her mind’s eye she saw John thread his fingers through her hair and kiss her hard on the mouth, felt the heat of his body against hers—</p><p>It was all pretend, here, she reminded herself. All for the sake of keeping her safe.</p><p>“And how would we do that?” she asked, already thinking of Helen. Of betraying her trust in some way, if not perhaps in the traditional sense. She hadn’t come here to ruin their lives, in this world where the Smith family was a whole and happy one.</p><p>“A bit of touching, maybe,” he said hoarsely, eyes catching hers, “a bit of flirting. Batting our lashes at each other across the table.”</p><p>“Are you really prepared to do that?” Juliana queried, “Just for the sake of keeping up a ruse?”</p><p>John was quiet for a moment. He seemed as if he were gathering his thoughts.</p><p>“I would have done anything for my brothers-in-arms in Mindanao,” he said finally, his tone slightly cautious. “And I would do anything for my family. Why wouldn’t I do the same for you?”</p><p>The words that he didn’t say struck her like a punch to the gut.</p><p>
  <em>You’re as important to me as my fellow soldiers, bonded to me by bloodshed. You’re as important to me as my family, bonded to me by love.</em>
</p><p>Part of her wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. This John, whom she was frighteningly beginning to think of as <em>her </em>John, was as principled as they came. He was willing to do anything to protect those who were important to him, at great risk to himself. He would put his reputation on the line—his comfortable peace with his wife and his son, possibly—for the sake of some elaborate ruse that was not even guaranteed to work.</p><p>For a moment, she thought back to the Reichsmarschall, to that speech he had given years ago, at the funeral of the man that he himself had killed: “Man is only ever as strong as the people around him—the community he serves, and the family he is sworn to protect. Whatever strength he has, he draws from them. And for them, he must be prepared to give everything. His life, for his blood. Or else everything he has done, has been for nothing. He is nothing.”</p><p>The similarity between the two in that instant was chilling, but Juliana quickly shook away the dread.</p><p>They were not the same, John and the Reichsmarschall. They held the same startling devotion to those they loved, and the same capacity for darkness, but John asked while the Reichsmarschall <em>commanded</em>, and suffered his crimes quietly while the Reichsmarschall <em>enjoyed them</em>.</p><p>And above all, what set this John apart from the Reichsmarschall was his hope. Perhaps some would call it foolish optimism, and still others would call it naiveté. But to Juliana, his hope was a balm for some of her deepest wounds. He still believed that she could be rescued, that good could win in the end, if only people devoted themselves to it. After years of cynicism and fatalism in her own crumbling world, hope was precious to her. She remembered Frank’s bitter distaste for her more revolutionary activities, back in their little basement hovel in San Francisco. But she also remembered that in his own, perhaps misguided way, Frank had simply been trying to protect her.</p><p>“You might not want to do the same for me because you’d be putting others you care for in harm’s way,” Juliana said, “You can’t protect everyone.”</p><p>“I know I can’t,” John responded, eyes sharpening as he gazed at her.</p><p>“And this might really hurt Helen,” Juliana said. She had to put it into words. “Even if it’s just a bit of fiction to get me through to tomorrow alive.”</p><p>“I know,” he said again, “I know.”</p><p>The sharpness left his eyes and in its place she saw a blazing fire, which spoke of ardor and tenacity.   </p><p>“But on the day I came home from my service in the Pacific, I promised myself that I would never again be complicit in torture, or watch a human being fall to pieces onto the sand of some godforsaken beach.”</p><p>She closed her eyes for a moment and thought of the Japanese soldiers he and his men had left behind in ignominy, dead and rotting.</p><p>“Leaving you alone to face these attackers,” he said quietly, “would feel too much like complicity.”</p><p>At this, John reached across the center console and laid his hand upon her shoulder. She looked up at him once more. Though the flames still flickered in the corner of his eyes, the vulnerability she could see in them now made her breath catch a little, and almost as if by reflex, Juliana covered his hand with hers.</p><p>“It’s not the same, John,” she said, voice soft.</p><p>“Maybe one day,” he replied ruefully, “I’ll believe you.”</p><hr/><p>Once they’d decided to mobilize the secretary-slash-affair plan, they took their last few hours before the clock hit four in order to prepare. Their first stop upon arriving in Raleigh had been the Boylan-Pearce Department Store in Cameron Village, thanks to Juliana’s insistence that no self-respecting secretary would be wearing an old pair of men’s pants and a threadbare scarf.</p><p>The Boylan-Pearce, though originally located in a beautiful turn-of-the-century Beaux-Arts building further downtown, had recently relocated to where it stood now. The storefront was rather modern in aesthetic, squat and geometric, and painted a warm neutral tan. Juliana didn’t mind, really—at least the place didn’t remind her of the cold black marble in the GNR’s New York City department stores. She thought of Lucy Collins for a moment with a sudden pang.</p><p>Upon passing through the front doors, she and John and were greeted rather enthusiastically by a chipper salesgirl, whose nametag read “Charlene.”</p><p>“Good afternoon,” the girl said, eyes shining as she looked between them. Her voice’s cadence and timbre told Juliana Crain the story of her origins—a poor rural girl, perhaps from the deeper South. Born into a farming family, perhaps, one where her wit had not been prized above her brothers’ manual strengths. But in her polished little uniform and in the shine of her eyes, Juliana saw hope for success, and for climbing up in the world.</p><p>“Hello,” Juliana greeted, as John came to a stop beside her and offered the girl a tentative smile.</p><p>“Is there anything I can help you both with? Are you two shopping for any special occasion?” Charlene asked, eyes flitting towards John.</p><p>“Yes, actually,” said John, “My daughter here, she’s starting her first job next week. It’s a secretarial post in a nice firm, so we were looking to get her a nice new suit for the office.”</p><p>At this, he looked at Juliana and smiled, laughter dancing in the corners of his mouth.</p><p>“Can’t have you looking too shabby, right, sweetie?”</p><p>Juliana almost guffawed, but managed to hold herself in check at the last minute. <em>His daughter?</em></p><p>“Right,” she said, “I really want to make a good impression.” She shifted a bit where she stood, affecting the nervousness she imagined might face someone at the start of their careers.</p><p>She’d never really had a career, of course. Unless being a revolutionary counted.</p><p>But she could imagine what it might have been like, what being a student and a daughter, a mother and a clerk, might have been like— she’d seen so many different versions of her own life that imagination came easy to her.</p><p>Charlene’s smile grew brighter at the exchange, and she said, “You two are in luck, then! We just got in a new collection from New York last week. I think that with your build and your complexion, a nice navy skirt and jacket set would really be darling!”</p><p>“Lead the way, then,” Juliana replied, as the salesgirl began to turn on her heel and head into the aisles packed full of sleek and elegant jackets. Juliana followed, but John stood still in his place, as if he’d been distracted by something.</p><p>With the salesgirl just out of earshot, Juliana decided to give him a bit of payback.</p><p>“Come on,” she said, grinning mischievously, “daddy.”</p><p>John choked on something that sounded suspiciously like a cross between a laugh and a groan and scrambled to follow her.</p><p><em>Victory</em>, Juliana thought. <em>If only tearing down the leader of the Greater Nazi Reich could be this easy</em>.</p><p>By the time the two of them caught up with Charlene, the girl had already picked out a matching jacket and skirt set from the racks. They were both a dark, deep midnight blue, and the fabric was textured and luxurious. The jacket was single-breasted and featured narrow lapels, and closed at the waist with a small belt. It would emphasize her figure well, she knew. The skirt, meanwhile, was a sleek and simple pencil cut, and matched perfectly with the jacket. John ran a hand down the jacket’s collar, clearly impressed with the quality.</p><p>“These are beautiful,” Juliana said, and the salesgirl beamed at her.</p><p>“Would you like to try them on? I wasn’t quite sure about the size, but I think these should be just about right.”</p><p>She let Charlene lead her into the fitting rooms, and along the way they picked up a silky white blouse with an open neckline to try on with the suit. Closing the door behind her, Juliana dropped her pants and shucked off her top in quick succession. As she slid into the white blouse, which felt soft and cool against her skin, she wondered for a moment what she was doing here, so far away from Bailey’s Crossroads. About the wild rollercoaster that the last few hours had been.</p><p>She zipped the skirt up, tucked her blouse in, and belted the jacket closed. In the mirror she could already see that Charlene had chosen for her the perfect style and size. The jacket’s wide belt gave her the illusion of an even narrower waist, and made her chest look more full. It’s lapels also left a large, elongated vee of skin visible, exposing her collarbones, and allowed the silken blouse to peek through from beneath.</p><p>She emerged from the fitting room, and made her way to where John was waiting for her on a plush little chair. He was staring down at his clasped hands, and she cleared her throat a little to get his attention.</p><p>“So, what do you think?” said Juliana, as his pale green eyes locked onto her.</p><p>“Perfect,” he said, his voice slightly rough. His eyes slid down her neck and her chest, down to her little waist, before she saw that he turned his gaze away.</p><p><em>Perfect</em>.</p><hr/><p>With her new attire, Juliana almost felt ready to play her part. She’d changed into the suit in the store’s restroom, right after promising John at the cash register that she would pay him back for it as soon as she could. As they walked together back to the parking lot, she could almost imagine herself as John’s secretary—filing his papers, taking his phone calls. She could also imagine, with a bit more difficulty (was it worry and moral concern that kept her imagination in check?), herself as John’s lover—him, turning that hungry gaze from the fitting room upon her again.</p><p>As they returned to the Mercury Lucerne, to those two seats where they had exchanged countless stories and spent many hours, they turned her attention to coming up with a quick cover identity. They quickly decided that she’d be from Virginia as well, though perhaps another town—Falls Church, maybe, or Cherrydale. She wasn’t entirely familiar with the state, but in the past few months she had at least gotten acquainted with the cities and towns close to Bailey’s Crossroads.</p><p>When picking a name, a part of her thought to suggest <em>Julia Mills</em>, but ultimately Juliana decided against it. Julia was just too close to her real name, and if word got back to Helen about this before they could sort things out on their trip, perhaps Helen would guess who had been out traipsing with her husband.</p><p>“Well, how about Charlene?” John asked, with a slight half-smile. He leaned back a little into his seat, stretching his arms as he spoke.</p><p>She chuckled softly in response, and agreed. <em>Why not?</em> Their helpful store clerk, memorialized and commemorated. A farmer’s daughter living in the big city, trying simply to make her way in the world, had inadvertently provided a cover identity to keep National Socialism away, to keep killers at bay. She wondered briefly if this was the kind of eminence Charlene dreamed of, late at night in her cheap attic bedroom.</p><p>As they pulled out of the Boylan-Pearce’s parking lot and headed out towards the Northwestern Mutual building, the clock on the dashboard read <em>3:27</em>.</p><hr/><p>“Are you ready?” John asked, fiddling with the tie and the coat he’d hastily put on in the car. His comfortable beige jacket had been discarded into the backseat, folded up and placed next to her old, worn clothes. In his left hand he held a small black briefcase.</p><p>Juliana, meanwhile, carried a notebook and a pen, as well as a few other files. It was a shame that neither of them had had the time or the opportunity to think of bringing a typewriter along with them—she would just have to appear to be a fast and accurate writer.</p><p><em>What sort of secretary takes handwritten minutes, these days? </em>She thought to herself. She could feel anxiety begin to churn in her stomach as she once again wondered as to the wisdom of their plan.</p><p>“Yes,” she said, although she didn’t quite feel ready.</p><p>They stood at the door of Northwestern Mutual, a gargantuan place that seemed from the front to be a maze of metalwork and windows.</p><p><em>Who will be able to see through me? </em>She thought. <em>Who will find me?</em></p><p>
  
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>That's it, for now! I didn't have time to really edit the chapter thoroughly, so if you guys catch typos or other errors, feel free to let me know. And in general, comments and kudos are always very much appreciated! </p><p>Quick note on the locations: the Boylan-Pearce originally opened in Raleigh in 1911 down on Fayetteville street, but around 1955 it moved out to another building in Cameron Village. The department store moved once more, this time to North Raleigh, sometime before it closed permanently in 1990. I'm not quite sure when the move to North Raleigh was, so I'll just assume that when Juliana and John visited it was still located in Cameron Village. </p><p>The Northwestern Mutual building that they arrive at, on the other hand, had just recently been completed. If anyone is curious, here is what it looked like: https://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/buildings/B003051</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>